


Nadadith

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cotton Candy Fluff, Dwarves In Exile, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Pre-Quest, bb!dorf addiction, no seriously floss after reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:52:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nori and Dís learn a thing or two about what makes a family in their Exile, or, to put it another way, Nori is a scamp even from a tender age and Dís is his reluctant self-appointed minder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nadadith

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story. The title comes from the Dwarrow Scholar's Khuzdul-English Dictionary and roughly translates to "little brother."
> 
> I love Nori and Dís as buddies and I wanted to explore that relationship. And write kidfic. Because, as you know, I can't stop writing about dwarflings. As far as their ages go in human terms (in the way I calculate them), Nori's almost 6, Dís is just about 9, and Hervor's a little over 10.

Springtime came late to the North. The artisans of Erebor found much call for the wares in the villages of the Men and Ironfists here at what seemed the very edge of the world where delicate blooms fought through the last of the springtime snow to unfurl their leaves and turn their bright hues toward the sun. The weavers did the very best business, selling out of bolts of light summer wools and taking in mending of those who had not secured their warm weather garments against moths.

Most of the exiled dwarrows of the Lonely Mountain were kept very much occupied, save one select group. Those dwarflings who were too young to go to work, but too old to keep their parents from work due to minding them found little in the camp to divert themselves. It was in the camp they were told in no uncertain terms where they must remain, until their parents determined that the town near which they had settled would not quickly turn against them. They had circled their wagons two weeks prior, but the favor of Men was a fickle thing and one insult over a price in the market could turn an entire kingdom of dwarrows against another and Ironfists were notoriously xenophobic, even to other dwarves.

The children found their own fun, tending to the ponies in the morning and generally making themselves useful around the camp before they wandered to its very edges for play and merrymaking. Games of chase, hide-and-go-seek, and mock swordfights with sticks (their wooden swords had been burnt for firewood) kept them occupied, but after a few days the youngest of their number was struck with a sudden fit of wanderlust.

“I’m _bored_ ,” Nori, son of Irpa, announced dramatically from the top of a large rock. “Bored, bored, bored, _bored_ \- oof!”

He was knocked from his perch by a large snowball which caught him right in the ear. The dwarfling howled and stuck his finger in to dig the ice out even as it melted down his shirt. “Serves you right,” Hervor, daughter of Vigg, said smugly, tossing her bright red hair. She was the eldest of their number and the self-appointed leader. “Stop howling, or get a new tune. We’ve heard that one before a hundred times.”

“A hundred?” Dís, daughter of Thráin threw another snowball at Hervor and got her directly between the eyes. “A thousand!”

“A hundred thousand!” Hervor retorted, chasing the younger girl around and around until her longer legs allowed her to snag the dwarfling round the neck and shove a handful of snow down the back of her tunic.

Dís could have beat out Nori for volume as she shook out her shirt and jumped up and down to dislodge the snow. It was a dirty grey, not the clean white of freshly fallen powder and stained their faces and their clothes muddy brown. Despite the snow on the ground, the day was too hot for their coats and furs. Their parents, with stern looks and folded arms would probably all order them into a bath in the icy creek to wash off, but none of them were thinking that far ahead as they played.

Once his ear was cold, but clear, Nori stood up and stomped his way over the the girls, giving Hervor a hard shove that only made her laugh at him. “You’re boring,” he says at last, folding his arms and kicking a glob of mud and grass from the earth.

Hervor clutched her chest and flopped back on the ground, “Oh!” she moaned dramatically. “How can I bear such a mighty insult?” Sitting up and cocking her head at Nori she asked, “Is ‘bored’ the only word you know? What are you? A plank?”

Scowling, Nori turned away from the girls and walked in the opposite direction of the camp. “Where are you going?” Dís asked, wiping at a spattering of mud on her cheek and only managing to smear it into the wispy dark hair that sweetly framed her face.

“Town,” Nori replied, rolling his eyes as though the answer was obvious. The expression was a perfect copy of the exasperation his elder brother wore so freely.

“We’re not allowed,” Dís reminded him and added, with a tone of frustration that she copied from her mother, “ _stupid_.”

“I know that,” Nori said, drawing himself up and looking as imperious as one could with a knit cap pulled down over one’s ears and a wet shirtfront. “I don’t care. I’ve seen all there is to see and I want to see more. Are you coming?”

Dís and Hervor exchanged an incredulous look. “Are you daft?” Hervor asked. “There’s guards about and Men as kidnap little dwarflings who don’t mind. And besides all that, what if your Ama or your brother sees you? You’ll catch such a beating!”

Nori was the recipient of enough half-hearted beatings from his mother and shrill talking-tos from his brother that he was numb to them even at his tender again. “I don’t care,” he repeated stubbornly. “Come or don’t - if you aren’t cowards.” And he stomped off again, boots sinking into the soft earth and hindering his progress slightly.

Dís was torn; on the one hand she hoped Nori ran right into his mother on the outskirts of town and got a whallop for being so disobedient. On the other, she thought that might not happen and what if the person who caught him was some sort of child-thief. Nori was stupid enough to wander off with someone for a promise of a new toy or sweets. And he was small enough for a Man to tuck under one arm and run off with. Being older and wiser, she thought of risk more than Nori did, but beyond that, she was a noblewoman by birth and thus responsible for the well-being of her people. Nori being kidnapped would most definitely not promote his well-being.

Eyeing some of the nearby rocks speculatively, she considered her options. She could brain him, let him fall to the ground and drag his unconscious body back to camp. Or she could follow him and try to keep him out of trouble.

“I’m coming!” she called, getting to her feet and shaking Hervor off when the older lass tried to pull her back.

“You’re not!” she countered, wagging a finger for emphasis. “You’ll both get lost and there’ll be _such rows_ when you’re not found again. Not to mention I’ll be in a world of trouble when I’m asked about you.”

“So come with us,” Dís said, looking worriedly at Nori who had not slowed his pace at all and was making steady progress away from him.

Hervor frowned and shook her head, “Not on your life.”

“Well, he’s off and I’m going after him,” Dís said, marching away from Hervor even as the taller girl shouted that no good would come of it and she was _telling_. Let her tell, Dís decided. Maybe someone would come running who could toss Nori over their shoulder without the necessity of knocking him out first. Dís had picked him up and carried him before, but after the last time, she decided it was best to do when he couldn’t try and scratch your eyes out or kick you in the stomach. He was a biter too, with teeth that, in Dís’s opinion, were unnaturally sharp.

She jogged to meet him and then walked slowly to keep their pace even. Nori did not say anything when she came alongside him, just smiled somewhat gleefully. It was always more fun to break the rules when he had an audience.

The town was like most other markets Dís had seen in their years of travel, bigger than some, smaller than others. The air was heavy with the smell of spicy meat pies and fresh-baked bread and her stomach rumbled. It was getting close to midday where there would be hard biscuits to soften in the warmed-up remains of last night’s stew. One hand drifted into the pocket of her tunic, but she knew it was empty. Her mother kept track of their family’s money and they would have none until her father, grandfather and brothers were paid for their work.

When times were better and they aimed to settle into a place for some months, she could go down to whatever little forge they managed to rent or set up themselves to apprentice for her father and grandfather. It was a spotty education, much like her actual schooling, but one she applied herself to with great passion. If she learned her trade well, she would not be left behind to mind little dwarflings with big ideas, but there was no time for schooling yet, not when they needed to earn a wage and knew not how long they would stay.

Speaking of her family, Dís kept a sharp eye out for black smoke billowing into the sky; the forges were usually kept well away from the main marketplace due to the soot and the smell of them, but she wanted to be sure they would not be seen by any of their kith or kinfolk and she forced to give an account of what they were doing out of the camp.

Nori truly paid no mind to the risk - he was careless about everything. His head was tilted back, reddish-brown braids trailing down his back as his eyes took in all there was to see, gaze lingering on a wagon laden with tarts a vendor was selling to a group of children of Men. They seemed to be Nori’s age, which meant they were a great deal younger and a _lot_ taller. Their clothes were new and the coins they held up and exchanged for hot pies shone in the sunlight. As he looked at them, Nori wondered what it might be like to buy one’s meals in the market every day and wear new clothes while they ate old stew and wore his patched tunic and dirty cap. He was sure it would feel _grand._

Dís’s impatient voice snapped him out of his reverie. “There. You’ve seen the town. Are you satisfied? May we go now?”

Nori’s eyes went saucer-wide and he tugged at her sleeve, urging her to follow him. “ _Dori_ ,” he hissed and began to run, tangling his fingers in Dís’s tunic and forcing her along after him.

The two dwarflings ran nimbly through the streets, ducking under carts and around the legs of startled villagers until they were out of breath and Dís could no longer remember which way they’d come or how to get back to where they’d started. Digging her heels in she pulled her arm out of Nori’s grasp and looked over her shoulder. “We’ve lost him,” she said. “At least, we’ve lost ourselves.”

But Nori was doing the strangest thing. Rather than following her gaze to ensure that they escaped the notice of his elder brother, he was looking at Dís and failing to hold in his giggles. Once he doubled over, she knew she’d been had. “You...you...” she struggled to come up with an insult great enough to express her ire, “You...tricky little Elfling! You never saw Dori at all, did you? Just led me a chase so’s I couldn’t drag you back!”

“It worked,” he pointed out with a grin. “And you girls think you’re so clever just ‘cos you’re older!”

“See how clever you are, then!” Dís shot back angrily. “You find your own way back. More fool me, thinking I should mind you. I don’t care if you _do_ get snatched up by some highwayman, serves you right!”

And she stormed away, not caring where she went nor who she tripped walking along. _Stupid little dwarfling, too much nerve for his own good_ ,” she thought, even as Nori shouted after her, “Dís! Come on! I was only joking! I was only having fun! Where are you going?”

 _A highwayman would be too good for him. And he wouldn’t take him long anyway. He’ll no sooner have him under his arm than he’ll come running back to camp and_ beg _us to take him back. He’d have to pay us ransom, not the other way round. And I’m not so sure as we’d take him back either._

Dís managed to backtrack well enough that she found the Man with the meat pies again, though the children were gone and the Man himself haggling with a tall lady with a basket under her arm. Must’ve been some hard bargain she was driving, he was leaning awfully close and they were speaking low to each other. It was only then she realized she hadn’t heard Nori shouting for her in a solid while.

She turned her head this way and that, but spied not his reddish hair nor his ridiculous gap-toothed smile. _No matter,_ she tried to tell herself. _You know if he’s been snatched whoever’s foolish enough to take him away will bring him right back._

But then, maybe not. The image of Missus Irpa, all upset and calling for her son who would not come running made her insides twist funny. Nori was Missus Irpa’s second and last son, she was fonder of him than anyone else was. She always took the time to brush and braid his hair properly in the morning, sent him out looking as neat and tidy as any of them could manage. Dori would be shouting and angry. They were a family of three, it was only them and they would be sore upset to lose them.

Dís tried to think of how she might feel if Thorin or Frerin left one morning and never came back, but she could not. It made her heart hurt too much to think of it.

“Nori!” she shouted, her voice swallowed up by the hustle and bustle of the crowd. It was really a very big market and he was such a little dwarfling. She could not see hide nor hair of him and as the minute stretched on, she began to panic. “Nori! I’m sorry I called you an Elfling! I know you were just teasing! Where are you?”

A poke in the small of the back was all the answer she needed. Spinning on the spot she found Nori standing directly behind her, grinning in the most foolish way. “There you are!” she said, relieved. “Gave me a fright! Why’d you not come the first time I called?”

“Why’d you not come when I called?” he retorted. “Anyway, I got you something.” His hands were behind his back and he cocked his head and indicated that she should follow.

Determined not to let him out of her sight again, Dís followed him into the shadow of a wagon-wheel leaned up against a cooper’s shop. With a small, proud smile he thrust a tart under her nose. The smell of hot meat filled her nostrils and made her mouth water. Dís was on the verge of taking it when she narrowed her eyes and looked at him suspiciously. “Where’d you get silver enough for pies?”

“Never mind,” he said, urging her to take it. “Go on, it’s fresh!”

Mouth dropping open in shock, Dís demanded, “Nori, did you _steal_ that?”

“Not just that,” he said, presenting his other hand, also containing a tart. “This too. Only this one’s for me, you’ve got your own.”

“You’re no better than a dragon!” she cried, remembering at the last possible moment to keep her voice down. Younger though he may be, Nori was old enough to know that stealing was a lowly act and punishable crime besides. Crossing her arms over her chest and looking down at the pie disdainfully, she added, “I won’t take it.”

Nori’s face fell and he looked at the pies in his hands before he nodded to himself. “Have it your own way,” he said finally and, with a small shrug, shoved both tarts into his mouth at once. “Seems t’me dragons do alright.”

The words were muffled due to the meat and crust jammed in his mouth and spraying from his lips, but Dís heard enough to understand. Glaring, and knowing her words would not get through to him, she clenched her right hand into a fist and she punched Nori squarely in the stomach

The lad doubled over, choking and sputtering and losing his tainted luncheon on the ground. Dís looked grimly satisfied. “Thieves get their comeuppance sooner or later,” she said as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and swatted at her with his free hand. She dodged the blow easily. “Yours was sooner than most.”

Taking his hand, Dís led him out from behind the shelter of the wagon wheel. “We’re going back. _Now_.”

No sooner had they stepped out of their makeshift hiding place than the Man with the pies saw them and shouted, “Thief!”

This time, neither of the dwarves needed prompting from the other. They took off running, hotly pursued by two Men in faded livery. City guards whose long legs enabled them to overtake the dwarflings, plucking Dís and Nori off the ground though the latter’s legs still pumped furiously in mid-air.

“Heavier than they look,” the guard who held Dís grunted as she pivoted in his arms and tried to free herself. “Here now, lad, no wriggling,” he chastised her. “You’re in enough trouble as it is.”

 “I’m no thief!” she shouted, entirely truthful for _she_ was not. She was no lad either, but did not see what difference it made to their current situation if she told the guard as much. The one who held her was fair haired and smoothed-faced. Young, for a Man. She was probably older than he was - _Nori_ was probably older than he was.

His fellow, who held Nori well away from him to avoid his flailing arms and kicking feet, was shorter and stockier, though no less young. If Dís had to guess, she thought he was about Dwalin’s height and she desperately wished her cousin was there. He’d have both of the weak limbed Men on the ground fast as blinking and would march them straight home. She’d abide a whipping from her mother and a lecture from her father if only she knew she would see them again that day and not the inside of a gaol cell. “Why’d you run off when he yelled ‘thief,’ then?”

“We weren’t running for that,” Nori lied, alarmingly smoothly for one so young. “We were running because we were late.”

“Late? For what?”

“Noon meal,” Dís said promptly; again, not a lie.

The taller guard smirked. “That so? And what of the crumbs on his shirt?”

“That’s from breakfast,” Nori grumbled, wiping his shirt convulsively with his fingers.

“He does very poorly keeping himself clean,” Dís said, which, with the dirt streaking his tunic and the mud on his boots and face, was plain enough to see for anyone who had working eyes.

“And who’s he to you?” the shorter guard asked.

“My little brother.” The lie slipped off her tongue as easy as breathing, even Nori looked startled. They were kin, he was a cousin, but not a close one. But Dís said it as cool as you please and even went on, “I lost him and found him again by the cooper’s stall. Ma’ll be terrible worried if we’re not back soon. We have to help with the washing up.”

The taller guard looked doubtful. “He doesn’t look a thing like a brother of yours.”

“And how many dwarf brothers and sisters do _you_ know?” she asked, somewhat rudely, but it was a ridiculous question. Thorin and Frerin looked alike, but Balin and Dwalin couldn’t be more different. Neither could Dori and Nori, for that matter.

“What’s his name?” the shorter asked.

“Nori,” Dís supplied promptly.

“How old is he?” inquired the taller.

“Twenty-six last summer,” Dís said, glaring. She knew that because Missus Irpa managed to scrounge up enough honey and flour to make a seed cake for Nori’s Name Day - most dwarves celebrated every ten years, but some of the mothers and fathers of Erebor took to marking the occasion every five since their children’s survival could be so uncertain. Dís remembered the day so well because she got to have a piece. “Now let me _go_.”

“What’s your parents’ names? Ah!” the shorter one said. “Both at once.”

Nori and Dís look at each other and replied, “Irpa,” at once, but when Dís said, “Hornbori,” Nori instead replied, “My father’s dead.”

“Ha!” the taller said, giving Dís a little shake. “If you’ve lied about that - who knows what else - ”

“I never said he wasn’t dead,” Dís insisted, twisting her shoulders, but the guard held fast to her tunic. “But his name when he was alive was Hornbori...Nori doesn’t remember him much, he was only a babe when he passed.”

“I do so remember!” Nori said, then, realizing this was not the time for an outburst huffed a little and looked away. “A bit.”

“Hush up, you little idiot,” Dís commanded crossly, forgetting herself as well. “It’s you who got us into this mess and I who’ve got to get us out. Bite your tongue.”

The taller guard’s youthful face broke out into a smile and he unexpectedly dropped Dís in the dirt. The shorter looked surprised. “You’re letting ‘em go?” he asked, loosing his hold on Nori uncertainly, but not letting him drop. “You believe ‘em?”

“I surely do,” the yellow-haired guard smiled. “I’ve got me a sister who’s a few years older and she’s _just_ the same - well, she was before she got married and left me by my lonesome. Let ‘em get back to their Ma. How much you want to bet ol’Bron was too busy making eyes at the milkmaid to count his pies proper?”

The short guard laughed and let Nori fall; Dís caught and steadied him before he fell in the dirt. “ _That_ I can believe,” he chuckled and just like that the two left them to make the return journey.

They walked in silence for the most part, Dís keeping one hand firm around one of Nori’s skinny wrists. What the younger lad was thinking, she could not be sure, but she herself was troubled over how readily that falsehood about being sister to Nori tripped off her tongue. She did not think she was a natural liar, no true dwarf was - well, except Nori who, as she said earlier, was sometimes more dragon than dwarf. Was she too a dragon-tongued liar?

Yet, the more she thought on it, the more she knew it didn’t _feel_ so much like a lie, just...a greyish version of the truth. For didn’t she look after him? Boss him, Nori might say, but Thorin bossed her around, as was his right. Nori needed looking after, even if he was sly and sneaky as a whole bag of foxes. He was little and, as the day showed, had very strange ideas about right and wrong and an entirely inappropriate sense of fun. Someone had to straighten him out a bit.

She didn’t have a little brother or sister of her own, though she dearly wanted one. Nori came already made, without the endless years of swaddling and nursing and crying and being generally uninteresting as a playmate. One merit in his favor, nothing was ever boring when he was around.

“Why’d you do that?” Nori asked when the camp was once again in sight. “Say I was your brother? What for?”

Dís shrugged, “I wanted them to know you were important to me. So they wouldn’t take one and not the other.”

Nori looked stunned, “I’m important?”

“To me,” she nodded. “If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have run around the marketplace screaming for you. I wouldn’t have followed after you at all. I didn’t want you getting snatched by a highwayman and sold to pirates.”

Nori looked delighted at the prospect, “I wouldn’t mind, I think that’d be an adventure!”

“I’ve had enough adventures for one day and so have you,” Dís scolded him, then, seeing that the camp was so close by, thought they might have time for one more little game before they turned themselves in challenged, “Race you! Come on, nadadith!”

With a joyful shout, Nori took off after her and the dwarflings ran up to the bubbling cauldron in the center of camp, falling in line right behind Hervor to take up their bowls and crusts of bread. One glance at the older girl was enough to know that she hadn’t mentioned their disappearance to a soul.

“Got him back in one piece?” she whispered and Dís nodded, smiling crookedly at Nori and beckoning him to stand in front of her.

Elbowing his way between them, Nori positively beamed at Hervor. “‘Course she did,” he scoffed, taking his bowl and holding his head high, chest puffed out with pride. “She’d be no kind of big sister if she didn’t.”


End file.
